Leading Facebook eCommerce Platform Payvment Closes $6 Million Round
of Series B Funding

SAN FRANCISCO--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Payvment,
the leading eCommerce platform on Facebook, today announced it has
closed a $6 million round of Series B funding led by Sierra
Ventures. BlueRun
Ventures, which led Payvment’s initial round of funding one year
ago, also participated in the round. Vispi
Daver, a partner at Sierra Ventures, has been elected to Payvment’s
board of directors.

“As we move toward a world where every industry is
becoming social, major retailers are starting to see the value of social
commerce. If they don’t, they risk becoming irrelevant.”

Following Payvment’s initial year of explosive, unparalleled growth, the
new funding will position the company for its next phase of development.
In its first year, Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 global
retailers to use its award-winning social commerce platform, recognized
by eCommerce
Awards for Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce
Site Innovation Award. Payvment currently offers more than 750,000
searchable products and is adding hundreds of retail storefronts and
thousands of products to Facebook per day.

Christian
Taylor, founder and chief executive officer of Payvment, said, “This
round of funding further solidifies Payvment’s position as the leading
social commerce platform on Facebook.”

Over the next few months, Payvment will be hiring top talent in
engineering, online community support, marketing, product integration,
retail coordination and other areas. To accommodate the increase in
headcount, the company will be cutting the ribbon on a new headquarters
in Palo Alto, CA in Q1 of next year.

Vispi Daver, partner, Sierra Ventures, said, “Social commerce is the
next big growth area and retailers are asking, ‘How can we monetize our
social media presence?’ Payvment has already answered that question and
has defined the social commerce space. We are excited to invest in what
promises to be one of the most important developments of the social web.”

Jonathan
Ebinger, General Partner at BlueRun Ventures added, “We couldn’t be
more pleased with Payvment and its skyrocketing success since our
initial investment. Now that the technology has evolved to enable large
retailers to import their inventories, the sky’s the limit.”

Payvment provides, free of charge, the only turnkey solution for
retailers to create their own storefronts where Facebook’s 500 million
users can discover products and shop without ever leaving Facebook.
Payvment also helps retailers incentivize Facebook users to become
“Fans” of their brands by offering discounts. Data
show that Facebook Fans are more valuable to retailers than non-Fans.
According to research by Syncapse,
Facebook Fans are 41 percent more likely to recommend a consumer product
and 28 percent more likely to continue using it.

Taylor added, “As we move toward a world where every industry is
becoming social, major retailers are starting to see the value of social
commerce. If they don’t, they risk becoming irrelevant.”

About Payvment

Payvment, Inc. (www.payvment.com)
is an award-winning, venture-backed startup that has created the leading
eCommerce platform on Facebook. Recognized by eCommerce Awards for
Excellence 2010 with the eCommerce Site Innovation Award, Payvment
provides, free of charge, the only application that enables retailers to
create their own storefronts where Facebook’s 500 million users can
discover products and shop without ever leaving the social network. As
retailers look to social media for new ways to build their brands,
Payvment helps monetize a brand’s Facebook presence and turn “Fans” into
more valuable customers. Launched in late 2009, San Francisco-based
Payvment has signed up more than 40,000 retailers offering more than
750,000 searchable products across Facebook. Payvment is currently
adding hundreds of retail storefronts and thousands of products per day.

About Sierra Ventures

Sierra Ventures (www.sierraventures.com)
is a private venture capital firm focused on investments across all
areas of Information Technology. The firm works with entrepreneurs and
management teams in the US, China and India to originate and build new
companies into large, profitable businesses. Since 1982, Sierra has
raised nine venture funds with over $1.5 billion in committed capital
and some of the firm's investments include MakeMyTrip (NASDAQ: MMYT),
Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU),
Sourcefire (NASDAQ: FIRE),
AuthenTec Inc. (NASDAQ: AUTH),
Greenplum (acquired by EMC), Simplify Media (acquired by
Google), Micromuse (acquired by IBM), FatBrain (acquired by Barnes &
Noble) and many more.

About Blue Run Ventures

BlueRun Ventures (www.brv.com)
is a leading early stage venture capital firm focused on Internet,
Mobile and Media opportunities. BlueRun works closely with entrepreneurs
to build market-changing companies such as PayPal (EBAY), WiderThan
(REAL), Slide (GOOG) and Enpocket (NOK). With offices in Menlo Park,
Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul, and Helsinki, BlueRun brings distributed
insight to each market and opportunity to help young companies navigate
dynamic markets.